A known occupant detecting apparatus is arranged, for example, at a front passenger seat in a vehicle to judge whether or not an occupant occupies the passenger seat. And, for example, when it is judged that an occupant occupies the passenger seat by the occupant detecting apparatus, the occupant is informed to fasten his/her seatbelt by a blinking light, or the like.
The known occupant detecting apparatus includes a load sensor which detects a load applied to a seat. The known occupant detecting apparatus also includes a judging means which judges that the occupant occupies the seat when detecting a seated state where the occupant is seated on the seat by detecting a state that a load value detected by the load sensor is equal to or greater than a predetermined value, and judges that the occupant does not occupy the seat when detecting a non-seated state where the occupant is not seated on the seat by detecting a state that the load value detected by the load sensor is less than the predetermined value (See JP2001-74541A).
According to the known occupant detecting apparatus described in JP2001-74541A, judgment results may be frequently changed because whether or not the occupant occupies the seat is judged simply by whether the occupant is seated in the seat (i.e., seated state) or the occupant is not seated in the seat (i.e., non-seated state). For example, a load applied to the seat changes when the occupant who occupies the seat changes his/her posture. Consequently, alternations from the seated state to the non-seated state, or vice versa, may be frequently occurred, and thus frequently changing the judgment results. With a construction which informs the occupant to fasten the seatbelt by blinking the light, or the like, blinking operations or stopping of the blinking operations of the light is frequently repeated by the frequent alternations of the judgment results (i.e., seated state or non-seated state), which brings drawbacks, for example, irritating the occupant and resulting in being visually unattractive.
A need thus exists for an occupant detecting apparatus which is not susceptible to the drawback mentioned above.